This week, I went to a funeral for a very special writing friend and hung out with scores of writers. Creatives are a bunch of quirky people, so I figured they’d be great research for this post, which I’ve been toying with for a while.

You see, I’ve got a few weird habits.

I didn’t even know they were weird until I outed myself to a few of my friends and family. Some of them looked at me askance. Others said “I didn’t know you were OCD.”

A few comforting souls said “Oh yeah, I TOTALLY do stuff like that.”

So, I’m bringing it to my posse here at More Cowbell. We’re gonna have Thoughty Thursday a day late this week. (Techie Tuesday was a day late too because of the aforementioned funeral.)

Here’s a few of the quirky habits I copped to:

#1: When I sit down at any table, I line up all my silverware according to proper table-setting etiquette. Forks graduated out the left side by function, knives and spoons by size and function out the right, with the dessert fork/spoon over the top of the plate. I stop lining it up when I run out of silverware, and I can’t stand it when they don’t give me a coffee spoon in a restaurant. I also put the glassware in order to the upper right, and I notice if the waiters don’t serve from the proper side. (It’s a curse, trust me.)

#2: When I play any card games, including on the computer, I line up the suites of cards in the same order as when I play bridge: spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs. At the very least, I alternate the red and black suites. I just can’t concentrate unless I do it.

#3: I chew my food fifteen times. Not only was my father a Vietnam vet with a bit of PTSD, he was the son of a colonel who hung out in officer’s clubs. Table manners were beat into us…literally. To this day, I’m an exceptionally slow eater. Hubby and I have counted before — I might go up to 20 chews, but I’m never under 15.

My own hubby is a bit ritualistic about how he coils the hose and organizes the pantry, so he doesn’t mind my quirks. But, when I asked my writer pals in Tuesday’s car ride what their quirky habits were, not a one of them could think of anything better than “I’ve got a few book rituals.”

What are your strange, quirky habits? Do the people in your life find them odd? Would you characterize yourself as completely normal, slightly eccentric, or suffering from a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder? Enquiring minds always want to know these things here at More Cowbell!

I have too many food rituals to count. But like Maria, I line up M&M’s in a kind of pyramid with the greatest number of one color on the bottom and the fewest of another color on the top, and I eat them so that I end up eating a green one last. (Don’t ask.)

I line up french fries from shortest to longest, and I eat them in that order, too.

I love FiestaWare and I stack my plates in rainbow order. (You have no idea.)

My cans all have to face forward in the cupboard, labels straight. Someone once referenced the old movie starring Julia Roberts and remarked: “Omigosh, you’re sleeping with the enemy!” And I was like: “I’m pretty sure I’m the enemy!”

Truly, these things are quirks because they aren’t disabling and they don’t prevent me from getting out of the house. As I’m sure you know, real OCD can be paralyzing. I try not to joke about it.

When we built our house, I designed it with glass front doors for the above-counter kitchen cabinets.. Does that say anything about how I like to keep my kitchen cabinets? Yup. I stand back and quadruple check to make sure they’re properly aligned to center with the glass. (I have solid cabinets by the fridge — for everyday glasses & coffee cuts, and above the fridge and ovens — for seldom used serving platters).

I keep my Tupperware in an under-cabinet corner cabinet — one of those lazy-susan doohickies, and they are neat and tidy with lids beneath the containers. I’m with Renee on labels facing forward in the pantry, like items with like items and designated areas for baking versus cooking versus snacking.

Moving along to the linen closets. I once yelled at my husband when I opened the closet and found towels not folded according to The Gloria Method. Mine are all neat, folded the same way, and stacked using a Renee-Fiesta-Ware color paradigm.

When the photographer was here for listing pictures of our house, he said, “I had you pegged as a perfectionist the minute I walked in the door.”

Jenny? I’m with you on arranging flatware at the table, and counting the number of times I chew food before swallowing. The latter was a habit developed post-childhood. As a kid, I inhaled my favorite foods so I could nab seconds before my sisters got to them. We, too, had Rules of the Table.

My home is the only place subjected to organization syndrome. It certainly isn’t something I manage to accomplish with my brain. Yeah. I know. Shocking!

For some reason my laptop won’t let me “like” any blogs and I’m still traveling, but had to laugh over this. According to my hubby, I’m a ball of “quirk,” but that might be a Mars/Venus thing, cause I think he’s pretty quirk loaded, too. LOL

I have to line up all my colored pencils and such in spectral order. Drives my sister nuts as I will immediately rearrange a new box of them so that red is to the far left and blues are to the far right. Laugh all you want, makes it easier when grabbing for the next color to use in artwork. Neutral colors go on either end, usually black and brown to the left and white to the right. So I guess it also sort of goes by which colors are “hotter” (red hot being cooler than white hot).

I know I have a LOT more than that, but I’m still waking up so my brain is fuzzy on them. People peg me as OCD within 5 minutes of meeting me though. I have a habit of straightening things around me (even in stores and such), have to check the door at least 3 times to make sure I locked it… of course there are also far less useful compulsions that get worse when I’m stressed…

Hey, at least you’re functional with your habits! I just thought of another one…I need to have even numbers of blog comments. I have no idea why. If there are 17 comments, I will answer one more, even if I’m short on time, to make it 18. I simply MUST do it. 🙂

Go figure, I tend to prefer odd numbers. Unless I’m lining up objects, then I need symmetry. Though I’m rather fond of having an “anchor” in the middle if said objects are in a straight line…

Some of the habits are more functional than others. It’s a bit better now that I have someone else in the house, but sometimes I will spend a whole day at work fretting over whether I shut off the oven, locked the door, or whatever else because I tried to make myself not check it that 3rd time. My face looks horrid right now because I break out when I get stressed, which usually leads to me clawing at my face… and then I’l notice I’m doing it and try to stop, and it’s like my skin is crawling until I go back to it again. I’m on the mild end of the OCD scale, thankfully, but it still drives me (and the people around me) really nuts sometimes.

I’ve gotten used to a lot of it, just some days it’s worse than others.

I NEED to get out of the customer service gig though. That’s got my base stress levels so bombed out I’ve turned into a ball of neuroses lately. LOL Then again, I think customer service would drive almost anyone to the brink of insanity…

I’m fairly quirky. I’m not quite truly OCD, but Hubby and Sir both say I’m a lot like Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory” in some ways (although not nearly as severe, and I don’t have Asbergers LOL).

I’m very…rule oriented. If the sign says “10 items or less” and I have 11, even if there’s NO ONE ELSE going through the express line, I’ll still line up in the regular line, EVEN if the cashier is trying to wave me into the express line. LOL

Also, I’m very territorial with my stuff. For example, we went to a BDSM play event last weekend, and someone put their stuff nearly on top of our stuff. I picked their stuff up and moved it about three feet away (there was PLENTY of room, they could have had anywhere else in the entire HUGE room to put their stuff down, Nooooo, they had to put their stuff on top of our stuff, WITHOUT ASKING first GRRR!). Or, if I put my jacket on a chair, and I get up to go to the bathroom or something, and I come back and someone’s in my chair, it pisses me off. That’s MY chair. There are other chairs. I don’t care if you’re just there for a second, that’s MY jacket, I don’t want your cooties on it. LOL

Also, we usually go to movies in the daytime so we can avoid crowds. I like to sit in the upper level, front row, middle. There will be HUNDREDS of empty seats, and someone will sit RIGHT BEHIND US, or just to the sides of us, and then make noise.

You want to see a look that could kill? That’s when I give it. I’ve asked people before to just freaking move because, HELLO, there’s only like 10 other people in the whole place, SIT SOMEWHERE ELSE!

I have a specific coffee mug I want my coffee in every morning. One morning, Hubby couldn’t find it (he was still working), and running late and finally brought me my coffee in a different mug. You would have thought one of my dogs died I got so upset. (Later found it in the microwave, I’d forgotten it in there with a then-cold cup of tea in it LOL.) I searched the house for twenty minutes until I found it. HAVE to have THAT mug for my coffee (when I’m home, when I’m traveling it doesn’t matter LOL).

I get into little mini-routines a lot, like for a period of time I’ll work out on the couch instead of back here in my office, and I’ll sit in the same spot, and get irritated at the animals if they take my spot. I make them move. LOL And of course, I say, “That’s MY spot.” LOL (A la Sheldon.)

And when we’re playing (BDSM), when I’m topping Sir (we’re both switches) I’m pretty sure He can tell where I’m going to strike next, because I do one side, then the other. Evenly. LOL And ditto, He knows the fastest way to really drive me nuts is to hit me in one spot, and then not strike me in approximately the same place on the other side. LOL Or to have equipment that’s not “even” or adjusted the same on both sides.

But in some ways, I’m pretty easy-going. It’s little things that can drive me nuts sometimes, but big things I can blow off, no problem. LOL

Characters like Sheldon and Monk entertain us for a reason. A TON of people have odd quirks and tics. The key is to find someone whose quirks are compatible with yours. I adore that my husband has certain ways he organizes things. It makes me feel safer, knowing they will be that way. 🙂

OMG sister, you do that crazy table crap too?! Man I thought I was the only one that got twichey with poor table settings and bad manners. It drives me nuts! I’m also a weirdo with my closet. My clothes are hung by color in rainbow order and I finally trained my hubby how to do it for me the right way.

The officer training was beat into me too. I can fold a fitted sheet with crisp edges and Andy just hands ’em over, he won’t even try.

Do you need all your hangers to be pretty evenly spaced across the whole closet? (Yep, me too.) And when I fold clothes, towels, sheets, whatever, you can bet all those corners line up to a gnat’s ass. 🙂

Like Monica from Friends, I have to eat small foods (m&ms, grapes, nuts etc) in even numbers. I just can’t stand eating an odd number of, say, good n plentys. If there’s only three left, I’ll leave one in the bag. Yeah…I know…

Quirky according to whom? Most of the stuff that freaks my husband out is plain old American stuff that they don’t do in Cairo, Egypt. But I admit that my closet is a little OCD, I have things hanging in categories and then within the categories things are sorted by length and color. Each category of clothes has special hangers best suited for that type of garment. Each pair of shoes has it’s own cubby hole and belts hang on special contraptions. Jewelry is sorted into a special amoire and I have one of those earring trees. Nowadays, it sounds cool, but I started this back in the seventies when there was no Container Store or California Closet. If anyone does wander into my closet it’s all ooooohs and aaaaaahs.

LOL. I would adore your closet, Jane. I can’t quite manage that, especially not with Baby Girl having a shoe party every other day (always in MY shoes), but I really love a color coded, well organized closet. 🙂

I have trouble going into most stores that carry books, movies or cd’s…because I feel the need to alphabetize them (which could have been a problem in my prior field as I worked inside a major electronics retailer at one point-I learned to stay away from that section unless I was mad & my team knew to stay away if they saw me in cd’s.)

All my dollar bills have to be in numeric order, smallest to largest…and all with the face side up.

I thought everyone kept their dollar bills like that (at least the numeric order thing, not always the face up). It’s a quirk? LOL It just makes things simpler, I think. My parents also taught me if your folding them to keep the smaller bills on the outside of the fold so if somebody tries to be sneaky and steal one off the stack, they’re only getting the smaller one.

I think it’s anyone who’s ever been responsible for money handling. My employees used to flip bills in my safe fund just to drive me nuts until someone pointed out to them that they got stuck staying longer as I worked to rearrange the bills, then recount…LOL!

All of the clothes in my closets must face the same way. Looking at the front of the garment, the hanger hook must be open on the left. I have been known to have a Mommy Dearest meltdown if I find clothing hanging in my home in another fashion. To the point of ungratefulness if someone has assisted on doing laundry. And towels must be folded the “right” way. No loose edges on the outside. And fitted sheets… I can gold them like they came put of the package. I always thought of these as charming traits, but I suppose to others they might be perceived as quirks. 🙂

LOL!! Too funny! This is probably a common one, but my clothes have to be color coordinated in the closet, and I there’s more than one color, I have a tendency to sit and ponder where it goes for awhile. My husband loves to mess with me about this when he does laundry. He tries to sneak pinks between some greens and that just won’t do!

15 times per bite? You have mindful eating DOWN, woman! So awesome.
I love learning about people’s quirks. I can’t read sitting still, so I do all of my reading, and much of my editing, at the gym. I also avoid foods that slither, because EW. 😉

Yes, that’s per bite, August. I’d be sick as hell if I ever tried to do 15 chews for the whole meal. LOL. I’d have indigestion to the max. I simply cannot eat fast. I was programmed by very un-fun dinners not to do so. It’s nice that something great came of that experience. 🙂

Also, I prefer to read on the go. The biggest bummer to me about Crossfit is that I can’t read while I do it.

First of all, I’m sorry to hear about your friend Jenny. I know you said that you’ve had a couple of close friends that were sick. Those funerals are very tough. That said, wow, there are apparently a lot of not-normal people here. Including moi. But who is normal really? Yep, I do the place setting thing. My mother is OCD and well, we won’t go there. I like things put away a certain way. Thank God hubby is a neat person or he would’ve been dead a long time ago. lol. And I have a hard time getting my head around my writing unless my house is clean. Yeah, the German thing. Again, my mother and the oldest daughter syndrome. So yes, I am not normal. Or maybe I am? 🙂

I don’t know, Karen…it sounds like you fit in just fine. I can write in the middle of anything except food filth. I don’t care if there’s laundry on the table, papers, whatever. All of it better be clean. 🙂

You do the place setting thing?? I seriously thought that was confined to members of my family and table-setting competitors (I love those, at the county fair…we should go together!!).

I can let it go now sometimes…but I REALLY WANT all of my currency aligned in my wallet. You know, all the presidents facing the same way, smallest to largest. It’s a little unnerving when they’re not. I had to kind of get over that when I worked in retail because–as much as I tried at the beginning–there just isn’t enough time to align the cash in the register.

I don’t like my food touching other foods on plate. I don’t mind it if there is a sauce that goes over the meat but if I’m being served and someone arbitrarily puts that sauce on the veggies, I’m not happy. I might do it myself once I taste the veggies–but no–it’s not to be done until I taste them first. I handle silverware the same as most people, (if you they’re right handed) with the knife in the in the right and fork in the left to cut. But then I have to set the knife down and transfer the fork to the right–and since I cut only one bite a time, this a process. 🙂 My mother said this was the proper way and not until I was older did I realize it truly didn’t matter, but I can’t seem to change the habit. Needless to say, I’m often still eating when everyone else is finished.

You are certainly not alone in either of your habits, Sharla. Incidentally, the way you were taught IS the proper way. I do it that way when I’m in a formal setting. When I’m not, I cut a few bites at once so I don’t have to stop. I used to put jam on one bite of toast at a time too. It gets old.

ROFL, Jenny! I’m loving these little “quirks” everyone’s sharing. I probably have more than I’m aware of at the moment, but one big thing for me is that, in a restaurant, I CANNOT sit at an aisle table. I don’t like to have my back to anyone. The corner is the spot where I’m most comfortable. Why? I don’t know – it’s not as if I’m worried that a band of ninjas are going to drop into Silver Diner from the heating vents and attack me when my back is turned, LOL.

I also find that I like to alternate what side of my mouth I’m chewing my food. One bite, left – next bite, right. I only became aware of this – peccadillo – the first time I was trying to eat after I had a tooth pulled and couldn’t chew on that side. Drove me nuts. 😀

That’s so funny, Kathy…I love all the quirks too. 🙂 I’ve found I chew mostly on the left side. It’s why I get irked when I get dental work on that side. I don’t like my chewing side to be out of order. I wish I chewed equally on both sides. (You’re so BALANCED.)

And trust me, if Silver Diner were to see a band of ninjas, it would be while you were in residence. LOLOLOL.

I can’t sleep in an unmade bed. Even if it’s 8pm, and my bed still hasn’t been made (which rarely happens) I have to make it in order to sleep in it. Only when I’m REALLY tired do I crash, made or not. Pretty quirky huh!?

I’ve got a few, but the most ingrained have to do with eating and writing. I don’t mind foods touching if they’re all the same temperature, but I hate my cool salad touching hot foods. I loathe green wilt.

When I’m using eggs (and I do almost every day for breakfast) I use them from the corners to the center of the carton. Then, I choose the eggs on a diagonal, so there is always balance and proportion. Oh, and while I’m cooking I wash my hands frequently – I don’t like getting them dirty.

I always have to play solitaire before I start writing, until I actually win a game. Then I have to get a cup of coffee. Only then can I open my Scrivener files and get cracking. And I tend to write at Starbucks because they have an unlimited supply of coffee and no one there will try to distract me. (I’m not sure if that counts as a quirk, or just being situationally aware.)

I can’t stand crossing out words or lines if I’m writing by hand, so I always use pencils – and they have to be mechanical, 0.5 point because I have to have it fine. My erasers have to be those white ones. They erase very well – and another thing that drives me crazy is smudges on my pages.

I can put the blame squarely on the shoulders of one of my friends for that one, though. She’s got an addiction to office supplies that she ever-so-kindly shared with me. And yes, she’s a writer, too.

Wow…I had no idea I was so OCD. I’m going to share this with Livvi when next we meet.

Wow, I can just imagine how long it takes you to eat. My daughter is like that. She chews very thoroughly and doesn’t want to put a new mouthful in until her mouth is empty. I’m pretty relaxed about everything but I go crazy if kitchen cabinet doors are open. When my friend cooks at our house, I’m hovering in the kitchen and closing the doors since he leaves them open every time he takes something out. Grr.

I have no idea why someone would leave all the cabinet doors open. That’s just weird. I’d have to close them all too. 🙂

I’m not the slowest eater I’ve ever met, but I’m pretty close. I have a gal-pal who, when she eats with me in a restaurant, leaves her plate about halfway through and then starts again when I’m closer to done. I didn’t even notice until she told me.

I cannot sleep in an unmade bed. Absolutely. Cannot. Also, I must lay out my clothes for the next day at night before I go to sleep. If I don’t it slows me down by as much as an hour while I try and figure out what to wear…..

Dang, I’m seeing so much of myself in these comments. I also have to have no more than the number of items posted on express lanes, and I have to have all the bills in my wallet facing the same way.

I also have this hand/germ thing that drives most everyone nuts. I can’t just use hand sanitizer, I buy the 40 ounce bottle, pour half into an empty one, fill them both up with alcohol and shake to mix. I figure it’s more germ-killing power…plus it’s not as sticky when you use it. And I use it ALL THE TIME. I’m surprised I don’t have panic attacks at the grocery store when the bottle in my purse is really low. I HATE touching shopping cart handles, and the machines for the debit/credit cards. I have been buying food service gloves (think Subway), and disposable rubber gloves for a long time because using all that sanitizer…and before that washing my hands 40 times a day…really dried my hands out. God help anyone who gets in my cupboards, silverware drawer, or a loaf of bread without clean hands.

I have to have my desktop icons lined up a certain way, especially at the bottom. I hate the way people will get seconds…and bang the serving spoon on their USED plate. I cannot stand to have most people stand closer than three feet to me because I hate them breathing in my face.

I’m leaving it here. LOL…there was more to my list, but I figured this was too much weird and quirky to share in a public place. 🙂

My milder quirks are eating mixed berry fruit snacks in a specific order (orange, yellow, purple, red, pink). When I sit down at a restaurant I usually rearrange the table so I have more space. This includes moving all the things in the middle to the edge of the table (salt & pepper caddy for example). When I sit down to write I arrange things in a specific way to maximize the space on the table top.

A not so mild one is when I run things cannot flop around. Shoelaces are doubletied so they don’t tickle my legs. Hair is up in a bun and under a hat. No jingling keys. I’ve been known to rip out stray strands of hair because of tickling. I run alone for a reason, too. When my husband runs with me he always tends to end up in my “blind spot” which is when I hear HIS footfalls and breathing instead of my own. Pulls me right out of the zone. He also asks me questions. I have been known to slam on my running breaks and confront him “I’m in the zone! Don’t talk to me!”

I can’t sleep if the closet is open. Even a crack. They have to be all the way closed. (this is fear based from my childhood). Hubby knows to close the closet doors if they are open. If, somehow, they don’t get closed before we turn off the lights, I will literally lay there, staring at that dark space between the door and the wall. Heaven forbid there’s a white shirt hanging in that space.

I don’t look in mirrors in the dark (like if I get up to pee at night) which is crazy because I sleep right next to a giant mirror (but my dog is between me and the mirror, so it’s okay I guess. She’ll protect me).